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Factnet Blog: News & Dialog on Issues of Vital Public Interest

Hundreds of children across the Midwest have been hospitalized with severe respiratory illness in recent weeks, health officials report. USA TODAY medical reporter Liz Szabo asked leading health experts to answer questions about the illness.

Climate change is one of the country’s most serious public health threats, said Gina McCarthy, the head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She spoke to a large crowd of local energy and environmental leaders at an annual conference today hosted by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse.

On Friday, Rand Paul suggested he knows more about international security than a certain former Secretary of State. Paul thought Hillary Clinton’s strong remarks on the threats of climate change—which came during her speech at the National Clean Energy Summit in Nevada—suggested an ignorance about America’s true key threats.

November may be two months away, but billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer and his political action team say they've made climate change a "top-tier" issue in seven key races.

Since unveiling campaigns in seven states across the U.S., Steyer's group, NextGen Climate, said on call with reporters Wednesday that it is "successfully making climate change a top-tier issue for voters."

Human influence on the planet's climate is clear and having "widespread and consequential impacts on human and natural systems," some of which may be irreversible, says a draft report out today from a United Nations science panel.

U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Friday said it would accept public comments on its proposed new "net neutrality" rules through Sept. 15, giving Americans extra time to weigh in on how they think Internet traffic should be regulated.

The FCC has received more than 1 million comments already on new rules for how Internet services providers should be allowed to manage web traffic on their networks.

Recently a friend posted a video on Facebook that he asserted would demolish the Godless theory of evolution. On it, a fellow sitting in a pickup and wearing a backward baseball cap smugly explained that Darwinian evolution contradicts the Second Law of Thermodynamics, a fundamental principle of physics.

This is an artist impression obtained from The University of Warwick and The University of Cambridge shows a rocky and water-rich asteroid being torn apart by the strong gravity of the white dwarf star GD 61. AFP/ GETTY

Asteroid 1950 DA is hurtling toward Earth, defying gravity, and could end human life.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, was indicted Friday on felony charges of coercion of a public servant and abuse of his official capacity.

The two counts against Perry, a Republican, stem from his threat to veto funding for a public integrity unit run by Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg unless she resigned, the special prosecutor in the case, Michael McCrum, said.

The public integrity unit investigates public corruption on a statewide basis.

David Miscavige, head of the Church of Scientology, cannot be forced to testify in a harassment lawsuit filed by the wife of a prominent church critic who lives in Comal County, a state appeals court ruled Thursday.